The Private Sector and the Internet

Abstract

The authors look at the rise of the Internet as the main application behind the emerging global information infrastructure. Many now believe that the Internet provides a window into a future in which access to information will be independent of geographic location and interactivity in a multimedia environment will be ubiquitous. The authors review the need for a regulatory framework for the Internet in three critical areas: provision of backbone access, Internet service providers, and information services. They also explore the problem of the appropriability of content, discussing intellectual property rights in the digital era and other remedies to the cost recovery problem. For developing countries, however, the critical bottleneck is still their weak information infrastructure.